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I recently took a work trip to Texas for a three-day conference. While exciting, we were staying in Paraguay at the moment. That means traveling from Paraguay to Texas, round-trip, in a span of four days. Let me tell you, it was exhausting. I’m not a 20-year-old college student who can cram into an economy seat and live on the adrenaline of the excitement of travel. I need my sleep!
Here are 10 random thoughts regarding this trip!
- Downtown Austin is awesome! We lived in Austin for two years after Covid, and we loved it. However, we lived near Austin’s airport and spent most of our time in Austin’s suburbs: Sunset Park, Round Rock, and Cedar Park. As such, we never went to Downtown Austin. Since parking is terrible and public transportation isn’t that great, it was hard to go downtown. So we never did. But that was a huge mistake! I stayed in Downtown Austin for the conference, and I was so impressed. So many restaurants, very walkable, stunning skyline, and the incredible river trail. I now want to take a vacation to Austin.
- International Flight Connections are annoying: Connecting between two international flights at airports is annoying because you must undergo security screening again. I never quite understood this concept because the originating airport is good enough to screen passengers entering the country, but not good enough to transfer them to another country. On this trip, I had to connect to international flights at Santiago, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires. Combined with the original security screenings in Asunción and Austin at the point of origin for each leg, plus the international-to-domestic connection in Atlanta on the way to Austin, I went through a total of six security screenings on a round-trip flight. Ugh!
- Shout-out to Panama’s Tocumen International Airport: These security screenings made me realize how notable Panama City’s Tocumen International Airport is. At Tocumen, you don’t have to reclear security when transferring between international flights. The plane pulls up, and you exit the gate just like taking a domestic flight in the U.S.: straight into the terminal. You can do whatever you want in the terminal until your next flight. This setup is quite rare, but I now truly appreciate how easy it makes international connections.
- Lie-Flat Business Class Can Still Be Uncomfortable: Everyone dreams of flying Business Class, especially on a long-haul international flight. I found a fantastic deal on Delta business class for the return flight to Paraguay from Austin. I was pretty excited for the flight from Atlanta to São Paulo because it had a lie-flat seat, meaning I could sleep on the plane. Unfortunately, I barely slept. I am a dedicated side sleeper, and to be honest, the seat wasn’t comfortable when I lay on my side. It is a leather chair, not a mattress, so the “bed” isn’t really soft. I was underneath the blanket because I needed the feeling of a blanket on top of me, but it just made me really hot. For the first two hours of the flight, the constant noise and movement from the dinner service made it hard for me to sleep. Compared to my exit row seat on the flight going to Austin, I’d still take Business Class, all else being equal. But was I disappointed? 150%!
- Lie-Flat Business Class has a Sweet Spot for Price vs Distance: Speaking of Business Class, this flight wasn’t my first time flying overnight in lie-flat business class. Whenever I find a fantastic deal, I buy it because the cost-to-benefit ratio can be so high. But our previous lie-flat flights have been 4-6 hours; this was my first Business Class flight over 6 hours. And for shorter overnight flights, I don’t necessarily find lie-flat Business Class a good deal. I need eight hours of sleep, period. On a 4-6 hour flight, if you subtract needing to be awake for takeoff and landing, you may only have 3-5 “useful” hours of sleep. To me, this isn’t really enough to say you slept enough to be awake fully the next day. And if you subtract meal service time, you may have only a couple of hours of sleep at most. As such, to truly get a full night of sleep, you need to buy Business Class on a flight of at least 9-10 hours in duration.
- Exit Rows are definitely worth it on long flights: If you can’t afford business class—and honestly, neither can I most times—then paying for an Exit Row seat is very much worth it. I flew overnight from Santiago de Chile to Atlanta on the first part of this trip, and I got an Exit Row seat because I had LATAM frequent flyer status. It was really a different experience from a regular Economy seat. Everyone focuses on the leg room, and yes, being able to stretch my legs completely was extremely nice. But being able to get up without bothering your seatmates, use the bathroom, or just walk around to stretch was also quite important. I had the middle seat, and in a regular row, I would have felt “squeezed in the middle.” But without any seats in front of me, I could get up as I pleased without bothering my seatmates.
- Airport WiFi is an important perk: Free and fast airport WiFi is underrated on international layovers. Unlike domestic layovers, where you can at least use your cell phone, international layovers mean you probably won’t have cell phone service. Thus, you are beholden to the airport’s WiFi. And while free is important, fast is equally – if not more important – when trying to work during a layover. For example, São Paulo’s WiFi seemed much better than Santiago’s airport’s. But I made the mistake at São Paulo of trying to stretch the free time limit instead of just paying for a day pass (I had nearly a 10-hour layover). Next time around, I will just pay for the WiFi day pass and ensure I have a strong connection all day.
- Priority Pass lounges are not for food: It seems like everyone nowadays has Priority Pass lounge access from their credit card. Much has been written about the overcrowding of airport lounges. Fortunately, we have rarely experienced an overcrowded lounge. In fact, I only remember having to wait a couple of times to enter the lounge. But while people, I believe, focus on food at the lounges, I find it more important to focus on the environment: bathrooms, seating, and WiFi. One reason is that I find Priority Pass lounges just suck at food. Most Priority Pass lounges serve snacks plus finger foods for meals. The ones that serve actual meals just aren’t that good. So instead of trying to squeeze a not-so-great meal out of your free lounge pass, I would rather focus on eating a good meal elsewhere in the airport and then focusing on work or relaxation at the lounge, which is really what it is for. Once you remove food from the equation, I bet you’ll find your lounge experience better.
- People need to wait for their boarding group to be called! The most annoying part of boarding a plane isn’t the wait on the jetbridge or the wait in the aisle while people put away their luggage. No, by far the most annoying part is having to navigate around everyone who crowds around the gate waiting for their boarding group to be called. And I don’t even really mean people who are just standing around waiting. I mean the people who stand right up against the signs showing the group numbers, so much so that you can’t tell whether they are in line to board or just standing there. There have even been a few times when someone wasn’t standing off to the side but was standing right in front of the entrance, not moving, while I was trying to get through to board with my group. Please, everyone, stand to the side until your group number is called!
- Traveling by plane is still really fun: Even though it was exhausting – and I mean exhausting – I still really do love traveling by plane. There is something about planes – especially international, wide-body planes – that just makes the experience cool and fun. And I love airports! I can’t even really explain why, but spending time at an airport is relaxing. Between the food, the people watching, and the plane spotting, I definitely consider it part of the trip. Plus, there are so few airports that I would consider not good. Some are mediocre, but most are good. And when it comes to plane spotting, I love just sitting by the window at the airport and staring out at the planes.
